1 . Related Application
This application is a non-provisional of and claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/703,422 titled “Flame Dispersant Canister Mounting System for Under-Microwave Location” filed Sep. 20, 2012, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
2 . Field of Invention
This invention relates in general to a canister containing a fire suppressant powder for mounting above cook stoves, and in particular to a method and apparatus for deploying the canister to dispense the fire suppressant powder to multiple cooking elements.
3 . Description of Related Art
Stovetop fires can be inadvertently ignited when, e.g., a pan of grease is left unattended on a heating element of a stove. If not promptly extinguished, a stovetop fire can spread to surrounding structures and cause significant damage and injury. To mitigate the risk of stovetop fires, automatically-activated fire extinguishing devices have been developed for mounting above a stovetop, e.g., within a range hood or under a microwave oven mounted over the stovetop. In the event of a stovetop fire, these devices typically release a fire suppressant material from a canister onto the stovetop, thereby extinguishing the fire. One example of an automatically-activated fire extinguishing device is described in commonly-owned, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/712,578, filed Dec. 12, 2012, now published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0175058, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Often, portions of a stovetop are not directly covered by a range hood, microwave or other convenient mounting location for canisters of fire suppressant material, Automatically extinguishing fires that ignite on these portions of a stovetop presents some difficulty.